


so collect your scars and wear them well

by orphan_account



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociation, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 05:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7210058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"his voice is light; and warm; even when he stumbles over big scientific words neither of them know; and it’s there and it’s real and it keeps him tied down, keeps him from floating away and keeps the red out of the corners of his vision."</p><p>jason reads to nico, and nico sort of returns the favor</p>
            </blockquote>





	so collect your scars and wear them well

**Author's Note:**

> when you're dissociating like mad and u get up and write a thousand words abt it and then some more bc suddenly ur havin emotions about these boys rip me

 

(i.)

the world is this weird buzz around him. 

(not a buzz, really, not a blur; it’s just… there. but also. not really There. the texture of his cabin wall is all he can focus on, the way the vague colors blend together and overlap to form a little galaxy in the wood, all the little imperfections that make the surface Not As Smooth As It Could Be. his eyes trace the patterns with singleminded attention that has no room for anything else)

he is; that’s it. he is; he is tied down by his body, but that’s the only thing holding him there—he feels like if he stopped looking at the wall his body would give up and let him float away. his body and the wall; if there’s anything other than his body and this wall, he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. 

(today; today is a day full of saturated memories that scratch their way into his head and won’t leave him be, blurred reds and shadows and yells he doesn’t want to remember. it is also a day full of nothing— he is nothing, there is nothing. there is everything. 

he gives his attention to the wall. the wall has nothing to say, and nothing to show him, so it’s his favorite thing.)

(reyna, he remembers at times when he can remember things, is good at dealing with days like this. she doesn’t try to make him talk, or get up, or look, even if maybe she should. she only does that on days where he sleeps till noon on purpose and doesn’t wanna go to lunch because he doesn’t feel like it— she’s spent years leading a bunch of romans, so she’s good at getting people to do what she tells them to.

on these saturated memory days, when everything is static and it’s so much work to keep his eyes open but they won’t stay closed, she is not a praetor, and she’s not the praetor-friend who pulls him out of bed to spar.

she sits and she exists. she is There; she keeps him in some sort of nice company even if she probably has Praetor Things to be doing. one time, he thinks he hugged her— or she hugged him, maybe— she sat next to him and her arms are very strong- she could maybe beat clarisse in an arm wrestling contest- and she wrapped her strong arms around him and he felt so small and flimsy he thought he might fall to pieces. 

she helps him remember that he has new, better memories, sometimes; sometimes; sometimes he remembers the look on her face when he sucked the soul out of bryce laurence and sent him down below—

_im sorry,_ he hears himself say, _i’m sorry i scared you, i scare a lot of people but i never wanted to scare you, never, I'm sorry_

_it’s okay,_ she says, _i think we all scare each other a little bit, in a way. but you, nico, you don’t scare me. it wasn’t your fault._

—and that’s Not True because he was the one that did it but he accepts her words and lets them make themselves comfortable under his skin, under his thin paper skin)

but today the world is not there; and neither are the knocks on the cabin door he doesn’t hear; and neither is the rush of fresh air when the nonexistent door swings open.

neither is the weight on his bed; neither is the feather-light warm pressure on his shoulder, arm, wrist, that pulls his hand from where it’s curled against his body and gently unfurls the fingers fisted so tightly it’s a miracle they haven’t snapped yet, haven’t splintered and broken.

he blinks, and his eyes follow the tingling trail the hand has left behind up to the fingers against his own. 

“oh,” he says, because these fingers are familiar, practiced, “hey.”

“hey,” jason responds, warm warm voice a perfect, not-really-there match to his warm warm hands; his own fingers feel like ice, ready to crack, “it’s almost two in the afternoon.” 

time is relative, he would say if he could get his mind and mouth to work together, but instead he says:

“oh,” again. 

“have you eaten anything today?” jason asks, and nico knows he knows the answer, even if nico isn’t sure himself, and knows that jason knows that he knows what he’s implying; too much, a little too much.

“m’not hungry,” he says. he’s not hungry.

and then: “nico,” in the concerned mothery voice that always convinces him, but not now; not now.

“i don’t want to,” with great effort he turns to lie on his other side, facing the son of jupiter, but not looking at him. 

“nico—“

“i just,” he says, “i just really don’t want to.” _i don't want to go outside; i can’t go outside; i can’t._

a silence, until jason sighs lightly, and slides off the bed to sit on the floor next to it. 

(so far the things that are there are: nico, and the wall, and the bed, and the floor now, and jason, maybe. maybe.)

before jason’s hand slides away he reaches out to grab it. he can feel jason’s gaze on him but eyes are too much to look at when the world is like this, so instead he turns jason’s hand over and slides two fingers down to press lightly against his wrist.

there is a pulse under his fingertips— he is there, he is just like the wall, a little galaxy of color and life and warm hands— that grounds him, vibrates through his paper body with every beat and helps him breathe (someday, he is afraid his own heart will stop beating and he won’t even notice, maybe it’s already happened). he lets his fingers slide away and rest beside his face. 

jason settles against the bed, head nearly against nico’s chest, and pulls out a book he didn’t notice he had, doesn’t know why he has it (he knows why he has it, will maybe be touched later when he remembers how to be)

“this one’s about the actual science behind lightning and stuff— annabeth lent it to me, since i wanted to know how my power technically works. not super fun if you’re up for a story, but,” he hears the shrug in his voice before he takes a breath a flips to a page in the middle and starts to read.

his voice is light; and warm; even when he stumbles over big scientific words neither of them know; and it’s There and it’s real and it keeps him tied down, keeps him from floating away and keeps the red out of the corners of his vision. 

his voice dances into his tired mind and tells him it’s okay to close your eyes, you’re safe, i’m here you’re safe you’re okay. it; it soothes like some kind of magical medicine, even though he’ll never say that out loud because he thinks that’s probably an embarrassing thing to admit. it helps his eyelids finally droop and helps the buzz of his head click off, fade away. 

(he thinks he doesn’t really deserve a friend like jason, and really wishes he could do more for him.)

 

 

 

(ii.)

nico has never ever seen jason cry— other than the time with leo, but now leo is back so that doesn’t count because he was never really dead, sort of. he doesn’t know what to do with the sight. 

he doesn’t know what he could’ve dreamt about to make him cry like; like this; like there is nothing, and he does not want to. he doesn’t want to know what hurts jason enough to make him cry, to wake him up and make him cry because it hurts because he doesn’t want him to hurt, he doesn’t know what to do with a hurt jason. 

(they stay the night at each other’s cabin, sometimes, on nights when neither of them want to sleep or they want to sleep too much to make the effort to leave, and sometimes nico wakes up from Bad Memories or Bad Things That Could Happen because when he isn’t full of static he actually remembers a lot and he’s also pretty paranoid sometimes, but. 

but jason has never been the one— or; or; or maybe he has, because nico isn’t there all the time, and everyone has nightmares, every single demigod wakes up with screams in the middle of the night because they have all been to war— but he’s never been the one with nico there and he has no idea what to do with a hurt jason grace who is crying, really really crying with blue blue eyes standing out against the dark.)

he doesn’t say anything— he knows that sometimes someone saying your name and asking you questions makes it worse, worse— just kind of. opens his arms, because they both fell asleep on nico’s bed and he’s right there, and jason looks at him for a long, lost moment and then he is in his arms, warm warm arms wrapping around him and pulling him tight, like; like nico is the only thing he has to hold onto and nico. understands. 

he lets his hands slide down jason’s back, and lets jason bury his head in his shoulder, and he won’t ask what his dream was about because jason never asks him and sometimes talking about things is helpful but this is not one of those times, not when he feels jason’s entire body shaking with the lingering nightmare. no. 

nico considers, and he thinks, and he swallows, and he opens his mouth, closes it, feels jason almost-sob, opens his mouth and says:

“so, my mother was a singer,” 

he can almost feel jason listening, and nico understands. 

“and sometimes, she would sing at this— not exactly a bar like there are now, but something like that? with milkshakes and a jukebox and stuff, and all kinds of people came to watch her sing. and there was this guy, who owned a newspaper stand down the street, and he was always really nice to us, and one time he brought me the latest _capitano america_ comic because it was the last one and no one had bought it. he was my favorite— captain america, i mean. he punched hitler in the face once. i hear there are movies about him now. anyways, in the one he gave me, there was this weird british guy…”

and he recounts the story the best he can remember, because it was ruined and left behind in that hotel in dc but he’d read it at least a hundred times because they hardly ever bought comics and he loved them— and he doesn’t think he does a very good job because he knows he misses some important lines and it’s hard to tell it without the pictures to go with it but.

but he feels jason slowly calm down, and feels his breath slow to a normal pace; in and out and in and out against his neck. 

(it isn’t as good as reading from a real actual book like jason always does, and he feels inadequate, but. it’s something. it’s the best he can give, because he never has anything real to offer.)

when he reaches the nonexistent last page, he isn’t sure how much time has passed, but he does realize that his legs are getting sore from where they’re folded underneath him and jason is still holding him tight.

there is silence, until: “thank you.” quiet; shaky. 

“you always do it for me, so.” nico tries to be nonchalant about it, but he never knows how to respond to things like this. “it’s no problem.”

he think he feels jason smile against his skin. 

“you’re a great story teller, by the way. we should see if leo can get us the movies.”

“i…” he almost maybe smiles, “i’d like that.” and as an afterthought: “ i hope the british guy is in one of them.” 

jason huffs a laugh into his neck, “me too.”

 

 


End file.
